Often times there are events in which groups of people gather together, and it is desired to obtain proof of an individual's presence at the event. For example, a class event may take place at a particular time and location (though it should be appreciated that similar dynamics to the instructor/student relationship may be exhibited in a wide range of other group gathering settings). In the instructor/student example, described herein for explanatory purposes, the instructor may require the presence of each student registered for a class to be present during and through the class period. The instructor may provide an incentive, such as extra credit, to each student that is present at the class. Thus both the instructor and the student desire a reliable way to determine whether the student is at a class. The instructor only wants to give credit to students that actually show up, and students want to be sure that their presence is recognized by the instructor when they do show up so that they receive the extra credit.
When class sizes are small, the instructor may have little difficulty recognizing which students are present, and which are absent just by looking at the class. As classes grow, an instructor may need to take roll call, calling out each student's name and receiving their response. In either case, the instructor must still take the time to actually record each student's presence, and students may not receive any confirmation that their presence was recognized and properly recorded. When class sizes are large, for example in a Big 10 college lecture hall, it is not practicable for an instructor to visually take stock of the lecture hall and know who is present or absent or to take a roll call.
Additionally, once class begins, the instructor is likely preoccupied with teaching and cannot remain responsible for also tracking the individual presence of each student during class. Students may come for the initial roll call, record their presence, then leave. Alternately, students may leave temporarily for a variety of reasons, to use a restroom for example, and then return. An instructor might see the student leave, but miss that student's return and inappropriately misreport the student's presence for the class.
Accordingly, it is desirable that students and instructors have a way in which they can ensure that the student's presence at the class is accurately recorded and that the student's presence throughout the class is monitored in such a way as to provide limited freedom to enter and exit the class without penalty. It is common that individuals carry a personal data device (such as a phone). It is desirable that the individuals' personal data devices may be used as part of a broader system to identify the individuals' presence at a location. However, privacy concerns relating personal tracking and monitoring often foster resentment by individual device owners where they feel that the monitoring is overbearing or too encompassing so as to intrude on their individual desire for autonomy and freedom.
There are a number of individual tracking systems currently in development or use. These include the systems set forth in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/529,675 filed on behalf of Whorley, Jr. et al (published as US 2015/0120362), U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/797,517 filed on behalf of Thomas (published as US 2003/0060212), U.S. Pat. No. 6,774,797 issued to Freathy et al, U.S. Pat. No. 8,260,321 issued to Dunko, and U.S. Pat. No. 8,874,024 issued to Argott, the disclosures of each of which is incorporated in its entirety herein by this reference for all purposes. While each of the forgoing relate to identification of individuals, they are not ideal for use in a group meeting environment. The systems track individuals too closely. They monitor positions of users all the time. They store the user's location and transmit the user's location to others. Such systems impinge on personal privacy and require continual power and processing draw on the user's device to update the user's position continually. That taxes the battery of the user's device as well as the device's performance due to it needing to continually run the location program or transmit location signals.
The present system provides an optimized system that limits the amount of information required and collected from individual devices while still being capable of determining an individual's location with enough precision to determine whether the student is present within a gross area where an event is taking place. The system balances the need for determining a person's presence during a discrete time and in a general area, with the individual's desire to not be monitored outside of that time or area, and, even when within the time and area, to not have their pinpoint location known and stored. It may also be used by users only during limited times when the event is taking place and reduces the burden placed on the user's device in tracking the user's general location.